Thirteen Ghosts
by Chii-Chi-Chi
Summary: "You don't remember, and I barely did before I came here but ten years ago, sometime around 2010, there was a massacre here." Amanda stared into the hallway, hand tightening around Sam's slightly. AU From Auditions Onwards.
1. First Contact

**Author's Note:** Hello! This is Aries-Dreamer, also known as Chi-chi-chi. I am a big fan of Glee and therefore am a Gleek. I also happen to be a slash shipper, even though I do turn my attention to heterosexual couplings. My favorite pairings for this show, so far, are Quick (Quinn and Noah P.), Finchel (Finn and Rachel), Asian Fusion (Mike C and Tina C-C) as well as Bartie (Brittany and Artie), Brittana (Brittany and Santana) and last, but not least, Hevans (Sam E. and Kurt H.). I also enjoy reading Klaine (Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson).

For this particular story I was hoping to explore the desires, wishes and dreams of the characters and how our views of the show affect how we, as writers, characterize them. I saw this story a while ago and I really liked it but it hadn't updated in a very long time. Like any loyal fanfiction fan, I asked the author if she planned on continuing her work with this story and, if not, if she would allow me to pick up where she left off.

Thankfully, she said yes, and here we are! The first chapter of Chi-Chi-Chi's version of Thirteen Ghost. This is a collaboration so the original author: **particularly good finder,** still influences the plotline.

_I really do hope you enjoy this. Constructive Criticism is wanted/needed._

**This story is best read in the 3/4 Format. Look at the upper-right corner of the screen and adjust the formatting to your liking.**

* * *

_Ok._

_Breathe in._

_Keep your cool._

_Walk straight._

_Not too straight._

_Don't slump too much though_.

He hadn't been stuffed into a locker or tripped up. No one pelted him with eggs or covered him shaving cream. All he had to do was survive lunch, and then study hall. After that he was home free. The jocks he had met in the hall had approved of his Buckeyes t-shirt., and there were some attractive girls around his English classroom that had given him the once-over. If he kept an average-to-low profile he could avoid the hazing other freshmen were unfortunately subjected too. At the very least, he was happy that he hadn't run into–

"Sammy!"

Crap.

"Hey there, shrimp!" Manicured hands ruffled the boy's blond locks as he rounded the corner of a hallway, trying to make his way to the cafeteria.

"Amanda –_leave my hair alone_– people can see you!" Samuel Evans swatted his sister's hands away from his head, while the girl merely laughed at him.

Amanda Evans smiled mischievously at her younger brother. She pulled him along the crowded hallway by the shoulder, reveling in the pink shades covering his cheeks slightly. The Evans family was a bit of an institution in McKinley, at least among the teachers. Samuel Evans graduated form William McKinley High School, as did his eldest daughter: Magdalene. After that it would be Amanda, and then Samuel Jr.

"You care way too much what these people think, Sammy."

"That's easy for you to say. You're respected without even trying."

"Who needs the respect of these losers anyways?" Sam's green eyes met Amanda's as the two had a silent battle of ideals, which only lasted until they reached the cafeteria line.

Amanda was class president, president of the Future Business Leaders Club and treasurer of the A.V Club. She wore dark rim glasses and often talked about _Doctor Who_ or _Mythbusters_ with her other high school friends. However, she was labeled a 'geek', 'nerd' or 'dork'. Sam once thought that it was due to her status as a black belt in aikido. She just broke the mold. She made jocks laugh, and sci-fi nerds feel important. The cheerleaders never had it out for her, because she had never had it out for them. No one really knew why, but Amanda would always say the same thing:

"Stupid people bow to legacies, Sammy. High School is just a hive-mind of stupidity."

Would it help people to see the younger Evans with her? No. Hell no. Why? Well, everyone knew that hanging out with sibling on the firs day because you had absolutely no where to go to was as pathetic as it could get. You had to forge your way during that first week of school. You had to find your own cliques, pick the one you liked the best, and conform, conform, _conform! _Not try to mooch off a family member's 'success'. As vain, stupid and ridiculous as it was, it was a fact in little old Lima, Ohio. Conformity meant acceptance.

Who wanted to be different if meant you'd be put through the wringer over and over again?

So, Samuel David Evans, the second, decided that he would be a jock, or a junior jock. They were hazed the least and all they had to do was be good at one sport and drink beer. Nothing else was expected. If he got those down and built up on that, maybe he could avoid being–

"Hey! Let me go!"

–stuffed into a locker like that one kid.

"Oi! Reuben, Carson? _What the hell? _" Amanda stood before the deplorable sight of two hunks of teen-males, both pushing a young, acne-ridden kid, into one of the larger lockers beside the cafeteria.

Sam watched from his place in the line as the blonde girl stared the two guys down. They shifted in theirs spots, each holding the young teen by an arm, while looking more like children than tough athletes in red and white High School letterman jackets.

"Come on; find someone else to mercilessly torture." If the young boy could kiss her, it seemed like he would have, as the two beasts stalked off to look for more prey. He smiled up at her slightly and she petted his head.

"You like the Syfy channel?"

Nod.

"Star Wars or Star Trek?"

"Star Trek."

"Hmm… Eleventh Doctor or Tenth Doctor?"

"H-How could you even compare them?"

Amanda smiled brightly and took the kid's hand, pulling a sharpie from her pocket. She began writing clearly and carefully.

"You might be just right for the A.V Club. It's down the hall, to the left and the third down on your right. Say this and they'll let you in."

"T-Thank you!"

If Sam could have been knocked off his feet without looking utterly weird, he probably would have been. All the students around them just carried on in their business. He only saw people he was sure were freshmen, the ones from his last classes, stop momentarily to watch the lioness saving a poor gazelle.

"That's proof! That's proof right there! You're like… Clark Kent. Only with female parts." The teen covered his head with a red tray when Amanda tried smacking him upside the head.

"Eloquent. Very eloquent."

_SCENECHANGE?CHICHICHIHASNOIDEA!SCENECHANGE?_

Lunch went by smoothly and all Sam had to do was reach his homeroom for some study hall and he'd be home free.

"Sammy, wait!" Amanda caught up with the boy as he walked down a couple of stairs. She grabbed his hand and led him forward, stopping by a lonely, empty hallway.

"Alright. This is important, so listen up." Sam tried to open his mouth to speak but his sister shushed him. He glanced to his left for a moment. A girl with long hair, dark eyes stood there. He looked away before doing a double-take.

She was gone.

"Am–"

"Shush! Look."

The lights in this particular part of the hallway were off. There were old and dusty posters put up on the walls and students weren't walking through it, but past it. They seemed scared, slightly irked and a bit freaked. Even the older students didn't seem to want to pass through.

"This is McKinley High's Bloody Hall."

"Bloody Hall?"

"You don't remember, and I barely did before I came here but ten years ago, something around 2010, there was a massacre here." Amanda stared into the hallway, hand tightening around Sam's slightly.

"Massacre?"

"There was this kid, his name was Harold or Harvey or something with _'Ha'_ in it. He came in through the cafeteria exit, the one that leads to the parking lot, and he was _armed to the teeth _with guns, but he came in at the wrong time; he wanted to catch the first lunch period. It was too early. When he couldn't find anyone, he turned to the halls and found the choir room and…"

He hadn't seen her so uncomfortable since she got a B on a Biology test last year… and that was really scary. A couple of girls, all holding hands, came from the cafeteria and stood beside them before walking across the hall. They stopped three times, each time in front of a door, and all three mumbled a bit at each before running out the other side. They hugged each other and squealed, looking both content and relieved.

"It's sort of a tradition. You come in, pay respects, walk out of the hallway. If you make it out alive, then you're good. It's sort of the spirits way of saying you're safe. No bad mojo." Amanda nudged at Sam's shoulder and pushed him forward.

His eyes widened slightly.

"You're serious?"

"Sam, as much as I _abhor _High Schools stereotypes, this is in a bit of good taste. Go on." Amanda pushed him again. The blond frowned as he stepped into the darkness of the hall. You could see, since the light from the adjacent hallways spilled in and made things a bit clearer. However, it was like stepping back in time.

Everything was clean, picture-perfect, with only a thin layer of dust and a couple of cobwebs here and there. There were red and white posters with dated sometime around April of 2010 with Titans game-dates and addresses. There were one or two posters for New Directions and when their Regionals competition would be held. Others were for Cheerios practices, bakeries and school car-washes. This part of the school was plastered with all kinds of activities but he hadn't' seen one poster anywhere else.

He had chalked it up to it being the first week of school.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when he felt a chill at his neck, moving up to his left ear.

"Sam!" yelled Amanda.

A soft voice whispered: _Run._

"Evans!" Reuben and Carson were walking down the hallway towards him.

Two rough hands grabbed him by the arms and the door labeled 'Choir Room' was suddenly pulled open.

"Not even legacies get off scot-free Evans." Reuben laughed as he pushed the blond in the room.

"Woah! Guys come on!"

"Your sister owes us a geek. You're new; you haven't proven yourself yet–" Carson grabbed the door handle.

"–That makes you a geek by default. Later fresh-meat." The door was shut with a cackle.

Sam launched himself off the dirty, dusty floor to pull at the handle but the door was shut tight.

Did they have keys or something?

"Well, they never change, do they?"

Sam whipped around quickly, back slamming onto the locked door as he looked around. His eyes narrowed and then widened when he really looked at the room: red chairs and black tools were strewn about, the colors were faded and some of them were scratched or cracked. Dark stains littered the white-tile floor, dark shadows casting a glance into the horrors of the past. The room was heavy with dust and dirt, with grime covering the darker corners and cobwebs settled against the windows. It was a place locked in time and the blond boy could feel it.

The black piano stood alone to the right, in front of the whiteboard where the words 'Regiona-' were written in clear, bright black marker.

Sam's green eyes became fixed on it. He stepped forward, careful not to step on any of the stains on the floor, and stopped in front of the old marker lying on the floor. He dusted it off, staring at the words, the only thing in the room that seemed to withstand the test of time. He didn't think, only felt, as his hand wiped the words off the board, leaving a clear white dash within a sea of grimy gray. He rewrote it:

"Regionals." He whispered, not even the web of dyslexia in his mind could cloud that word.

"Yeah. Too bad we never got there." Sam turned around, his eyes widening suddenly as everything changed. Freezing was only the beginning. Things were changing fast.

The cobwebs were receding, and the stains of the floor were becoming brighter; crusty black gave way to shining red as the tiles on the floor shined again. The fluorescent lights came one, one by one. Sam grasped at the door handle, desperately tugging at it as the sound of creaking chairs filled the air. The upturned stools and chairs were organizing themselves on the risers.

Twelve chairs covered them, and one sat in front of them, next to the great black piano.

"Crap… Ok… If there's anyone here, I'm not trying to mess with you at all…" Sam turned his back to the board and clenched his hands as the last of the lights in the room flickered on.

It looked brand new.

"I know_ that_ genius."

_Dear God_, those were the bluest eyes he'd ever seen. It didn't even cross the jock's mind that this kid hadn't been there a second ago, or that he was possibly a really _pissed-off_ ghost. The blue-eyed boy adjusted the furry, red band on his right arm before standing up, giving Sam a full view of what he was wearing: a red and white uniform with the letters _WMHS_ printed on the front. Where those pants even for boys? They seemed a bit-

"Eyes up here, _lemon-head_." The eyes were suddenly very close and Sam let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding in.

"W-Who… W-What..?"

"I'm Kurt Hummel, resident cognizant ghost."

"You know, he'd probably be more comfortable if you stepped back Kurt." A soft voice came from Sam's left.

A girl in a dark gray dress and a red over-coat sat in a chair not far from where Kurt and Sam now stood. The blue-eyed boy took a couple of steps back before studying Sam for a moment. He then moved to sit down next to the girl, who pulled her blond bangs away from her eyes and tucked them behind an ear.

"Do you have to scare them all away?" Her voice was soft and while she kept looking at Sam, she was really talking to the one next to her.

"I wasn't going to scare this one away." Kurt raised an eyebrow. The girl gestured at the room with her hand, where everything was clean and clear; where the only thing that clashed were the pools of blood on the floor.

"Fine. Do what you want. Don't come running to me when it backfires and slaps you in the face." The girl turned and stood up. "I was- I'm Quinn Fabray. It was nice meeting you."

With that, she was gone. She faded out as quickly as she had arrived. Sam stared at the spot where she once stood and at the chair where she had been sitting before turning towards Kurt.

"You're part of…"

"That club? The ones that got mowed down like a group of cattle at a slaughter house? Yes."

"Are you all here?" That freaked him out. That Quinn girl had just appeared and disappeared, or maybe… she hadn't. Maybe she was still in there with him and Kurt. What if all the others were watching them at that exact moment? The thought set the teenager's skin on fire, goose-bumps rising steadily across his arms, shoulders and neck.

"Relax. It's just me and you, lemon-head."

"Would you quit it with the lemon-head?" It was just what he needed: a sarcastic ghost.

"It's the perfect name for that dye-job." A smirk came on Kurt's face as he whipped his head to the side, brushing brown bangs from his face.

"I do not dye my hair." A psychic, sarcastic ghost.

"Uh-huh,_ su-_."

"Kurt."

The blue eyes stilled and became wide. That spark of humor that attracted Sam was gone, replaced by something much darker. Fear suddenly flooded them and words were caught in the pale throat. He turned slightly, glancing at a door at the other side of the room. A figure was looming in the shadows. The door was slanted in such a manner that you could only see the feet: sneakers and dirty jeans. White sneakers and faded denim jeans covered in blood.

"Get away from him!"

Wild eyes, a clean-shaven head and a body that could side-check a wrestler. A young man in a plaid blue shirt ran at him, eyes dark and black, hands clawing out at him. They were scarred, marred; you could see the bone behind the fingers, the nails pushed back. Pushed back from clawing, clawing at everything and everyone.

Sam stood frozen in his spot and became oblivious to Kurt's screams as the other guy ran at him. He was able to move, to breathe and react only when another body came, from where he didn't know, and slammed the screamer onto the ground.

Deep brown eyes and a mess of black hair were the most striking features.

"_RUN YOU IDIOT! RUN"_

You didn't have to tell him twice.

_SCENECHANGE?CHICHICHIHASNOIDEA!SCENECHANGE?_

"No way… _No way_!" Amanda's eyes lit up as she struggled to contain a smile.

It was moment like these that made Sam Evans wonder: 'How in the hell am I related to this girl?' The teen had run out of the choir room when those two demons burst onto the scene. He didn't stop running, pushing people out of the way and crossing hallways until he made it to an exit. He dashed down the cement stairs and collapsed onto the sidewalk as the bell, signaling the end of the school day, rang. Sweat had been coming down his back and his muscles ached from the sudden burst of energy, but he felt better. The distance kept him safe.

Sam had pulled out his phone, dialed Amanda's number and asked her to meet him at the library. After that, Sam had made his way to the library. Once there he recounted everything to the worried sibling that was waiting for him.

"I _told _you so!" Amanda whispered excitedly, leaning over her textbook. The two were sitting in the library, avoiding the suspicious glances the librarian tossed their way. They only returned the look with two angelic smiles, but it seemed the woman would not be satisfied.

"I think we can figure out which was which." The seventeen year old opened the tattered yearbook in her hands, looking up the page for the Glee Club. She smiled and set it on the table.

"New Directions: Never to be Forgotten." She read. There were at least three pages dedicated to the club, and one page for each member, including their director.

Amanda adjusted her thick-rimmed glasses and pulled out a sheet a paper and two pens, one black and one blue, from her messenger bag. She turned the book so Sam could get a better look.

"Let's make a list of each of them."

"List? Why?" Sam asked while staring at a photo of Kurt Hummel with an African-American girl beside him; they were linking hands and posing for the camera.

"We're going to help them, duh." The boy scowled when his forehead was flicked.

"Wh-"

"Sam! It's obvious that they're stuck here. Would you like being stuck here as a ghost?" Amanda popped the cap of her pen and tapped the first page. "Now read, it'll be good practice for you anyways."

Sam scowled but turned his attention to the yearbook. "Glee Club… N-New Directions, 2009 to 2010."

The first was Rachel Barbara Berry. She had been a star from her infancy, and had always tried to shine the brightest. When she joined New Directions, that changed, and she decided to make sure that her club became the star of William McKinley High School. Her favorite plays had been _Les Miserables_ and _Wicked._ She had long brown hair, a bright smile and eyes that were focused.

"Oh god, who the hell dressed her?" Amanda frowned at the combination of a cream turtle-neck with dark brown argyle pattern, a light brown sweater, a denim skirt and knee-high socks with brown, golden-buckled shoes.

The next kid was in a wheel chair, wearing a white dress-shirt, a red green bow tie and suspenders. His dark and thickly rimmed glasses couldn't hide the confident smile or the twinkle in his eyes. Arthur 'Artie' Abrams. He liked rapping and had hoped to be a dancer one day, but decided that being the first Jay-Z in a wheelchair was better.

Behind him, two Asian students stood holding hands. The taller of the two, Mike Chang, was dressed in faded-blue jeans with a light-blue t-shirt covered by a striped black and white jacket. Tina Cohen-Chang stood next to him, a girl with long black hair covered in blue high lights. She was dressed head to toe in black, with the exception of her skirt, which was a plaid red and black pattern.

"Oh! I remember, the Goth look was so in back then. Magdalene told me about it." Amanda moved the yearbook to study Tina's style, writing down a couple of notes on her description. "Used to stutter… Thought to have been a vampire by half of the student body?"

"Why would they put that in?" Sam reached for the yearbook again, reading the names and descriptions of the rest of the members of New Directions.

Next to Mike and Tina were Brittany S. Pierce, a tall blond, and Santana Lopez, a busty Latina. The two were smiling at the camera, proudly displaying their cheer-leading uniforms. Their hands were clasped together tightly. Behind them, Quinn Fabray stood with her hair tied into a pony-tail, wearing a cheerios uniform and a sly smile.

"Wait… I saw her. In the choir room." Sam pointed at the girl, and Amanda wrote an asterisk by her name.

"Did she say anything important?"

"She told Kurt that he shouldn't scare 'this one' away and that his plan was going to backfire." Amanda's mouth tightened into a thin line. Green eyes turned onto the page, and Sam was quick to point out the other ones.

"Here! This ghost tried to kill me, but this one stopped it."

"Noah Puckerman, self-proclaimed tough guy. I've heard a bit about him… _Nice mohawk_. Finn Hudson. Part of the Celibacy Union, Quarterback. Guess he was the golden boy."

Sam stared at the page, and then did a minor double-take when he saw a pale face with a raised eyebrow and bright-blue eyes. Kurt Hummel. His throat closed slightly. In this picture, he was wearing a checkered right covered by a brown sweater, with a black tie peeking out from underneath. He tried not to laugh at the yellow 'smiley-face' embroidered on it.

"This one – He was the first one – Kurt. Only he was wearing a uniform." Underneath the boy's description were the clubs he had joined: New Directions and the Cheerios.

"Oh, I love those jeans. Was he a model or something?" Amanda took off her glasses and looked closer before jotting down the boy's name. "Wonder what they look like from behind…"

"Amanda!" Sam's cheeks were spotted unevenly with reddish hues. The girl smiled devilishly and tugged on the teen's nose lightly. He swatted her hand away.

"Ooh, does someone have a thing for poltergeist with tight pantaloons?" The girl wrote Mercedes Jones' name down on her pad.

"Pantaloons?"

"Pants is just a clipped word for pantaloons, Samwise... _Alright._ So that's them plus Matthew Rutherford and Will Schuester, which makes thirteen… Alright." The junior grabbed the yearbook from Sam's hands and shut it, looking at him in a determined manner.

"We need to help them. One restless soul at a time, got it?"

"Don't have much of a choice, do I?"

"Oh come on. Like you wouldn't jump at the chance to help that cute Hummel kid!"

"Mandy, I love you, but _shut up._"

* * *

**T.B.C**


	2. True Colors

**Author's Note:** Gaaaaaah! IT CAME OUT SADDER THAN I HAD HOPED. BY that I meant that it was more angst-filled than I imagined it but… I just needed it to be like that. It was how I felt the scene really fleshing out.

_Ay Mi Dios._ I'm freaking out. Some of the better writers here on FF have put this story on alert! I guess this is what happens when you find a good plotline and feel out the correct vibe. Woot? :D Epically.

Now, one thing I did forget to place in the first chapter was the **Disclaimer.** _Obviously,_ I stake no claim on anything Ryan Murphy has created and Fox has all the rights to this show. That being said, IF I owned the show, it'd probably be called the Kurt Show.

There would be epic Kurt/Everyone all the time.

As a promise to you all I will work extra-extra-extra hard to make this story a good one. Bear with me on the little details that escape my grasp so that I can adjust them as we go along. Also, please allow me a moment to geek out over the fact that the writer of Quinn in Wonderland has put my story on alert.

Why? Well that particular moment made me spill popcorn all over myself like a fourteen year old fangirl. I'm seventeen so I should definitely be more lady-like! :3

**ALSO: I am in search of a BETA. :D Please leave a message through FF if you wish to apply.**

* * *

"Virgil."

"Why the hell Virgil?"

"Do you not see the parallel between this situation and Dante Alighieri's _The Inferno_?"

The seventeen year old interpreted Sam's silence as his answer. She flipped through the pages of her notepad and handed it over to the frowning teen in front of her. The list of all the deceased students had been written on another paper, each in blue and some with titles next to them in black.

"We can't talk about this in public all willy-nilly. People will think we're insane. So, we'll just use some code-names."

Sam looked over the list as Amanda opened the 2010 year book. She stopped at the New Directions page once more and frowned a bit, tapping her lower lip while deep in thought. She leaned back into the chair she was settled in and glanced at her brother who still studying the titles of the ghosts.

"Virgil was Dante's guide in the Inferno. Kurt said he was the 'cognizant' ghost, right?"

"Yeah."

"Cognizant comes from cognizance which means awareness. It also means being knowledgeable or wise..."

"So… he knows a lot?"

"Well it's quite possible. He was the first one to appear and that other ghost didn't come until he did." Amanda continued, "Dante was on a journey into Hell, representing humanity, and Virgil knew everything about it. So, the parallels between the four of you are quite clear."

Sam's semi-vacant stare made Amanda give-up on her exposition. It wasn't that her brother was dumb, far from it; sometimes, though, he'd only pretend to listen while his brain carried him off somewhere else.

"Oi. Get off the Pandora, we've got stuff to do." She snapped her fingers in front of the boy's face and was met with a scowl.

"Fine. So Finn Hudson is… The Guardian Angel?"

"Yes. He saved you from the Warrior."

"That's Noah Puckerman."

"Right."

"And Quinn Fabray is the Childless Mother?"

"Oh yeah! I did some research on her. Chris, the paperboy, is in my Biology class. He told me that the Fabray girl had a daughter." Amanda pulled a folder from her bag and then pulled out a sheet of paper. "And indeed she did. Beth Corcoran. She gave her up for adoption a little over a year before the shooting."

The page was a printed version of the home page of some internet sight: WMHGB - The Glee Corner. 'Learn all the latest gossip, from scandalous affairs to secret addictions.'

"What is this crap?" Sam said as he pulled the page closer and scanned it.

"Jacob Ben Israel. Do you recognize the name?"

"Not really."

"He's the production director for WOHN News 8. He used to be a student here and he wrote a lot about the kids in Glee. He was the biggest gossip back in the day." Amanda smirked, happy with her findings. She fiddled with her pen as Sam read the paper and then turned to the notepad. She frowned suddenly.

"What I can't get over is that he appeared in the middle of the day."

"Maybe I invaded his space? I wasn't eager to get in there." Sam put the notepad back down onto the table, and then let his chin rest on the flat surface.

It had only been two days since he had been tossed into the choir room by Reuben and Carson; two days since Amanda decided that those ghost needed help; two days since a couple of cheerios saw him running for his life from the damned Bloody Hall of McKinley High. Things had started to snowball when a couple of guys in Gym class called him out on it earlier in the day. Apparently he hadn't seen the girls, but they were quick to spread that little Samuel Evans had run for his life from ghosts.

That sucked big-time.

"Stop with the pouting. Would you forget about those gossip-mongers?"

"How do you already kn –"

"What do you think we do in A.V Club? Sit around and talk about HDMI cables? Cory Monteith–"

"Tall one, goofy smile, really slow?" Sam smiled when Amanda's cheeks became beet red.

"He is not slow! Just clumsy. Anyway, he told me that Lily from the Cheerios Squad saw you run out of the choir room like someone had tried to murder you."

"That's because someone did!"

"Don't complain to me about what ghost tried to eviscerate you. We need to focus on helping them, and you need to stop worrying about a bunch of cheerleaders calling you Pee-vans."

"P-Pee-vans?"

Not only was it extremely unoriginal, he'd probably be hearing about it for the next couple of weeks. No amount of Buckeye memorabilia or suave pick-up lines was going to mend this broken bridge. He let his forehead meet the table. The siblings continued mulling over the events which Amanda labeled: 'First Contact'. Amanda had convinced her A.V Club friends that she was interested in the happenings of the Bloody Hall for intellectual purposes. Knowledge for the sake of Knowledge.

When they didn't buy that, she told them she was training to be part of a ghost-hunting team over the winter. They believed that.

Sam had brought up the events during gym, tapping into the brains of a couple of new acquaintances.

**_SCENECHANGE?CHIICHICHIHASNOIDEA!SCENECHANGE?_**

"Heard about what Reuben and Carson did, man. Tough." A tall boy with deep dark eyes and equally dark skin shook Sam's hand when he entered the boy's locker room.

"If it helps, they stuck me a locker once a week when I was a freshman. Remember that Abel?" Jun Roberts turned from his spot at a nearby bench. He was rubbing at his eyes a bit and tugging on his gym shirt. Abel laughed as he shimmied into his shorts.

"Do they lock people in that choir room often?" asked Sam, closing the door to his locker and turning to face the two fully.

"Not really. People try not to mess around there too much." Jun answered. A contemplative look crossed his face before he snapped his fingers. "You know, now that you mention that room, I saw something weird once."

"No. No– _dude _–Come on. Those stories are not true." Abel scowled and closed the door to his locker. He walked off with the other guys to the Gym.

Jun followed, stopping only once to turn towards Sam.

"I saw this freaky girl. Long hair, blue high-lights and a black sweater. Frilly-white stuff around the arm. She sort-a just stood there."

"Did she say anything?"

"Um… The darkness inside you makes you tiny? Then she sort of just… disappeared." He shrugged.

_**SCENECHANGE?CHIICHICHIHASNOIDEA!SCENECHANGE?**_

"Creepy." Amanda looked at the yearbook and pointed to Tina Cohen-Chang's picture. "Black sweater, white design on the wrists and neck. We should call her the Shadow."

The girl was smiling at the camera, but mostly with her eyes; someone had snuck up on her to take the picture when she was in the middle of laughing. Her sharply manicured hands covered her mouth. Her almond shaped eyes were full of energy, and full of…

"… life. Has anyone else seen this girl?" Sam asked. Amanda crossed her arms, thinking deeply.

"I think Jenna, from my homeroom, said she saw her walking around in the girl's bathroom once?"

"Can you call and ask?"

_Your true colors, _

_True colors,_

_Are beautiful _

_Like a rainbow..._

Sam looked behind him but saw nothing. He let out a short breath and saw it travel like mist in the air. It dissipated in mere moments and when he focused on where it had gone he could see a blurred figure at the back of the stacks of historic books. It was gone when he focused on it.

He moved without really realizing it and that only happened when he was out in the hall, the library's double doors swinging behind him.

_Show me a smile then_

_Don't be unhappy, can't remember_

_When I last saw you laughing_

Sam turned to the left, where a mane of long, wild black hair disappeared around a corner. He followed. Running down the hall, he passed by a confused janitor; he tipped over a bucket of water by accident. Turn right, then left. He saw a plaid skirt. Turn left. His bones weren't aching yet but his muscles were and the nerve endings under the skin were registering the cold.

_If this world makes you crazy_

_And you've taken all you can bear_

_You call me up_

_Because you know I'll be there_

Down a flight of stairs, hanging a left, the music was becoming louder. _And I'll see your true colors shining through. _Someone was whispering. Mutterings and phrases were filling his head; they bounced off the lockers, off the wall and floors. They reverberated and echoed. At first they were sad, but then turned louder, hopeful even! They were becoming sad once more. Lower and lower, they became harder to hear until the light left the hallway and old sneakers skidded to a stop on the white-tiled flooring.

The Bloody Hallway. Green eyes focused, looked about: girl's Bathroom was empty, so were the boy's and the janitor's closet too. That left the choir room.

Rushing, always rushing, Sam opened the door and clambered into the room. The silence was nearly deafening. The sweet melody had died and it had died so suddenly that he hadn't noticed until the beating of his heart began to slow.

"Oh… It's that boy."

She sat on the risers, the fourth one up, hands held in her lap and eyes curious. Her face was smooth and fine, not pale at all. She looked so alive that he could have easily fooled her. Her hair was a long mane of black with blue intercepting here and there. Her boots were clean and glistening, black shoelaces tied neatly. She stared at him and Sam had the feeling that she hadn't come to the same conclusion he had.

She didn't know.

He could see her but she didn't know.

"Sam? What are you doing here?"

Kurt was sitting at the piano bench, arms crossed as well as legs. He wore a black sweater over a white-collar shirt, black tights and black boots. Was that a skirt as well? A kilt? What ever it was, combined with the hat on his head, placed slightly sideways, completed the look of an Elle magazine model.

Not that he _knew_ what an Elle magazine was.

"Tina?" The blue-eyed boy moved fast, standing at the foot of the risers, completely focused on the girl who was still studying Sam. "Tina? Can you hear me? Tina!"

Tears were welling up in those dark eyes. She placed a hand over her mouth as a single tear made its way down her left cheek.

"Tee? Tina, please…" Kurt's words were coming out rougher and were barely spoken between growing sobs.

"Hey." Tina turned her head towards Sam, her eyes becoming impossibly wide.

"You can see me?"

"Um… Yeah, I can." Sam swallowed thickly.

"You can _see _me."

"I know. Can you see anyone else?"

Tina glanced around the room, her hand still over her mouth. No one else was available to her eyes. She stared in Kurt's direction and Sam tried not to react to the boy's sudden hope. It vanished when the girl turned to Sam.

"I thought I was alone, but… you can see me." She smiled slightly before that expression took over again: Fear. "W-Who are you? Where's the rest of the club?"

"You don't–" The blond cut himself off when he saw something bubbling from the wall at the top of the risers.

A door.

It was a dark red, like wine, with a single chain crossing it. Tina followed the lad's line of sight and looked at the door. She moved quickly, trying to pull at the handle. The door didn't budge. She pulled the chains but they didn't move away from the door.

"I have to find Artie! Mercedes! Mike! Everyone else!" Sam moved instinctively and held Tina's shoulder. The searing cold made him wince but he forced himself to pull Tina away from the door.

"Listen to me! You need to calm down!"

"Sam! Tell her I'm here! She can't see me at all!"

"Please, I have to find Artie or that boy is going to kill him. Pleas let me go. _They might be through that door_." The girl was sobbing now, tears rolling down her cheek and smudging her mascara.

"I don't think she knows she's dead." Kurt called from the bottom of the risers.

"Just listen to me." Sam pulled Tina closer and stared at her in silent pleading. She hiccuped but stopped moving. "You can't see him, but he's here. You're friend Kurt is here and he's telling me that you have to calm down."

"She's still looking for him, her boyfriend. Sam, you have to tell her what happened. Now!"

"You're Tina Cohen-Chang. You were part of New Directions and you were there when that crazy kid came in with a gun. Do you remember?" Sam let the words flow out of his mouth calmly. Tina nodded with equal calm.

"They're dead… aren't they?"

He nodded.

"Am I dead?"

"Yes." He kept holding on, the cold reaching out to his elbows. He couldn't move his hands; they felt far and away from him.

"Tell her I love her. Tell her I've been trying to find her, to help her!" Kurt was on the top riser, behind Tina, staring at Sam.

Guiding him. He continued to speak and the blond let the words travel through him.

"Kurt loves you, he's with us now. Behind you." Tina turned, facing her friend but seeing nothing. "He wants to tell you to leave. Move on."

"B-But Artie…"

"Your boyfriend is going to be fine, just fine. Just know you're not alone."

There was a whimper, he could hear, but it didn't come from Tina or Kurt. Sam ignored it and focused on the task at hand. The red door was opening, light flooding through. Kurt moved away from it, face in clear awe: eyes bulging and mouth wide. Tina looked at the door and at the slipping chain link. The lock was materializing: a large iron lock with her initials written upon it.

It was working. That door was her way out, Sam knew it. It had appeared when she realized he could see her, and started opening when he touched her. The door kept widening until it burst open with his following words:

"You're not invisible, not anymore." The flash of light that flooded the room blinded all of them.

The sudden shift pushed Sam back, the queasy feeling of imbalance filling his body as his back made contact with the floor. Pain flooded through him.

After that, there was only darkness. A voice came to him.

_You'll find him?_

_Yes. I promise._

**_SCENECHANGE?CHIICHICHIHASNOIDEA!SCENECHANGE?_**

"Sam? Sam!"

"Sam, wake up!"

"Sammy. Tell me you're alive!"

"Lemon-head!"

Green eyes opened slowly. Breath came quicker than the sight before him and the smell of raspberries filled his nostril. The one person that always smelled of them was Amanda, and her eyes were now looking down at him.

"Thank the lord. You incredible idiot." She whispered.

The three of them were still in the choir room, which was looking as dirty and abandoned as the first time Sam was tossed in. He was lying on the floor, next to a couple of upturned chairs. Kurt was sitting down next to him, with Amanda at his other side. She sighed and pulled him to a sitting position.

"Where's Tina?" Sam grunted as he rubbed at his neck. He balked and groped at his arms. The cold was gone, the sizzling and burning pain that was up to his elbows no longer there.

"That goth chick? She went through– _Oh my God_." Amanda stared up at the risers. She ran up to them and placed her hands on the wall. "I am not crazy. Sam, I swear there was a door right freaking here."

"I know. I saw it." Sam began to breathe in deeply, smiling slightly at the concerned look Kurt sent his way.

"She looked at me and smiled and then she went through the door. Oh Sam, you should have seen her. She looked so beautiful in white." Amanda looked down and then pressed herself against the wall, eyes wide in fear. "What the fuc– _Was he always there?"_

"Who? Kurt? Yes." Amanda wasted no time in running down the risers and throwing herself on the floor, next to Sam.

She stared at Kurt in extreme fascination while the boy pushed back a bit. The blond beside him cursed before covering his ears with his hands.

It was a good idea too."

"HE'S REAL! HE'S REAL! _OH EEEEEM GHEEEEEE_!" The seventeen year old squealed, sending Kurt reeling back onto the lowest riser.

"Kurt Hummel. Amanda Evans, Sci-Fi geek and squealer-extraordinaire." His comment was met with a smack by Amanda.

"Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise!" Amanda stood when Kurt did and helped her brother up. "Wow! You're more fashionable than in your pictures… Is that a skirt?"

Sam smiled at the shocked look on Kurt's face and the slight pink that colored his cheeks.

"Fashion has no gender." He whispered rather icily.

"It. Looks. So. Hot! I love it!" Amanda seemed unfazed.

How logical, centered and focused Amanda was related to 'fan-girling', exuberant and energetic Amanda was one of the grander mysteries in the Evans household.

Kurt smiled stiffly before turning his attention to Sam.

"Why are you here? Did the Neanderthals toss you in here again?"

"No. I followed Tina. She was watching me and Amanda at the library and I heard her." Sam replied.

Amanda looked between the two before stepping next to her brother.

"He also wanted to talk to you. Seemed eager about it too."

Kurt chuckled, sitting on one of the dusty chairs. "Really? And why would you want to do that?"

Sam shrugged. "Well…I told my sister about what…_happened_ a couple of days ago…and she thinks it's our job to 'free your souls' or some bullshit like that…"

Kurt raised an eyebrow. He stood from his place on the risers and walked away from the two before stopping and turning on the spot. His face was like a mask: the right eyebrow was still raised, the lips were tightly shut and the eyes were focused on him.

"Why do you care about our souls?"

"I dunno know." He shrugged as Kurt sat back down on the lowest riser. Sam didn't look at him as he answered. "If the Glee Club was still around then Amanda would probably be running it. I'd sign up in a heartbeat."

"Totally." Amanda said from her new spot in a nearby chair. She was writing down something on her notepad. Her scribbling was quick and you practically hear the movement of pen on paper.

"You didn't strike me as the show choir type."

"Singing is singing. I mean, I don't know anything about Broadway or whatever, but everyone likes music. Glee is about that, right?"

"Yes."

"Amanda's not that easy to talk to anyways. When she sets her mind on a goal she goes all out. Arguing with her is futile.

Amanda huffed angrily.

The ghost boy smiled slightly. "That's a big word for a meat-head."

Sam scowled. "Just because I'm a football player –or aspiring to be one– doesn't mean I'm stupid."

Kurt's smile faded. "You're right. I'm sorry."

The blonde boy waved it off. "S'okay. After hearing about the way you died, I wouldn't be the biggest jock fan, either."

Kurt sighed, looking down. "You have no idea, kid."

The room fell into an awkward silence. Sam cleared his throat, glancing around the room.

"Um…so, are there really thirteen of you?" He asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

Kurt nodded the sad look still on his face. "Yes. We were all such good friends."

Amanda glanced up at her brother and mouthed at him, urging him to continue. The other frowned and sat down next to the specter, whom had his legs crossed and one hand fisted in his black skirt.

"She couldn't see you, but Quinn could. That Noah guy too and the other one…"

"That was my stepbrother. Finn. He can't see me or hear me. Only Quinn and P–Noah, can." Kurt stared down at his lap before turning towards the two siblings. "It wasn't even like that in the beginning. It took a while to… register. What happened, I mean."

"Can they see each other?" Amanda asked.

"Finn can see Puck. He's a bit violent. The times I've seen him, Finn keeps stopping him from hurting someone. Quinn can sometimes hear me. I haven't seen anyone else but Tina and Rachel."

"Rachel Berry?" Amanda wrote what Kurt said down.

"I don't like seeing her. She just _relives_ it, like the damn drama queen she is." The face was growing redder; the blue eyes were swelling with tears just like Tina's had.

"What do you mean by that?" Sam didn't look away from Kurt.

"S-She…" Kurt's lip trembled slightly and he looked away. When he turned back, his face was still red and his eyes were still holding back tears but his mouth was a firm, think line. His jaw was set. "She died fist. She just keeps walking down the hall, talking about what she did that day. Comes in, berates me about my way of looking at her."

He stood walking towards the piano. Amanda and Sam watched him, but both stilled when they heard the sound of heels hitting the floor. The door at the left of the room opened and closed. The squeaking of sneakers could be heard as well as the shifting of chairs. A couple of keys on the piano were played. All of this happened as Kurt kept talking.

"Mercedes tells her to stop being a solo-hog. Rachel argues that we need to be the best if we're going to beat Vocal Adrenaline and the Warblers and everyone else just… They just tell her to shut it."

The door on the right opened slowly. The heels continued along the floor: the shadow of legs moved nearer to that opening. Past memories were being re-enacted before them.

"And he came in. She screamed and she kept screaming when she was down. I think he hadn't shot anyone before her because… He stayed there for what seemed to be forever. He stayed and stared at her. She just screams now. They all do. They scream the same way. The same screaming from when they died…" Kurt was still standing away from the other two.

"We're going to help you. You saw how we helped Tina."

"Yes but she's the most agreeable out of all of us."

When Sam placed his hand on Kurt's shoulder, the cold that came from touching the Goth girl wasn't there. His green eyes, full of promise and courage, met the empty blue ones.

"Then we'll just have to come up with a game plan next time."

Kurt stared at him, wide-eyed. "You…you're _actually_ going to go through with this? Are you _crazy_?"

"Oh, trust me. We're crazy enough to do this." Amanda wound her arm around her brother's and then around Kurt's. "Sammy's the hero. I'll be the sidekick and Kurt is our supernatural mentor."

Kurt's smile took Sam's breath away, instantly. "Ah. So, we're a rag-tag ghost-saving team, aren't we?"

"Yeah. I guess we are." Sam whispered.

**T.B.C**

**Additional Author's Note: **Yayness. Chapter Two Complete. I wanted to set up a schedule for myself and post this NEXT Sunday but school starts on Tuesday (Next Week) and I grew impatient so.. Yeah. :D I'll probably have Chapter 3 done by this week, but EXPECT SLOW POSTING from January 12th onward.


	3. Interference

_**`author's note:** Late. Yes I know. VERY LATE._

_And Un-BETA'ED (DON''T KILL ME) because I wanted to get this up to the 96 people who have this on Alert. SERIOUSLY, DROP ME A REVIEW. No love? Come on! XD In happier news, I'm halfway through Chapter 4. So expect it in two to three weeks. _

_Rewinding!_

Here's what you missed on **'Thirteen Ghosts'**:

Sam Evans started his first week as a freshman at William McKinley High School. He's a nervous wreck. The cool thing is his family is a legacy so he shouldn't be too worried about any hazing or bullying, right?

"_Your sister owes us a geek. You're new; you haven't proven yourself yet–" Carson grabbed the door handle._

"– _That makes you a geek by default. Later fresh-meat." The door was shut with a cackle_

Yeah, not really. On the upside, it turns out all those Bloody Hall rumors are true:

"_I'm Kurt Hummel, resident cognitive ghost."_

On the downside, it turns out all those Bloody Hall rumors _**are true**_:

_White sneakers and faded denim jeans covered in blood. _

"_Get away from him!"_

_Wild eyes, a clean-shaven head and a body that could side-check a wrestler._

Being clawed to death by a ghost isn't on Sam bucket list. Not that Sam's sister, Amanda, is fazed by her brother's near-death experience. She's too curious about other things like:

"_We're going to help them, duh."_

At least they have their own 'Virgil' to help them out along the way:

"_Why the hell Virgil?"_

"_Do you not see the parallel between this situation and Dante Alighieri's The Inferno?" _

Come on, he's a freshman and metaphors or allusions from Dante Alighieri's masterpiece aren't going to get through to him that easily. At least Sam is forced to focus on something more constructive:

"_You're Tina Cohen-Chang. You were part of New Directions and you were there when that crazy kid came in with a gun. Do you remember?" Sam let the words flow out of his mouth calmly. Tina nodded with equal calm._

That's one specter down…

_You'll find him?_

_Yes. I promise._

…and only twelve more to go. And that's what you missed on '**Thirteen Ghosts'**.

* * *

**_WEBEGINOURCHAPTERNOW!COMMENCE!_**

_You need to leave them be._

_Let them go on their own._

_Pain is all I see._

_Pain is all I see for you._

That face wasn't scary or intimidating. It was more like annoyed. Even if it was basically telling him to 'Fuck Off', he felt like it was doing so halfheartedly.

"Damn!"

Sam sat up, sweat rolling off his chest and face. His eyesight remained blurry for a few moments until it focused and he could see the Avatar bed sheets he was covered in. He took a deep breath and rested his back against the headboard of his bed. The IHome stereo on his wooden bedside drawer was flashing '5:20 AM' in angry, red numbers. The sun was spilling in through the places where the blue curtains on his window couldn't cover. The growing rays of the sun where splayed unevenly across the gray-carpeted floor, where a multitude of things were thrown, tossed or forgotten: a book bag was stuffed underneath the bed, an unwashed pair of shorts peeked from under the bed, a couple of CD cases were teetering at the corner of a small desk and some Xbox 360 game cases were strewn around a small television set.

The fourteen year old rubbed at his eyes and stared at the ceiling, where Captain America and Spider Man were staring at him, each striking their famous poses. He couldn't help but feel like they were silently judging him for being in such a state: breath a bit ragged, body on fire, and with his mind out of control. It had been three weeks. Three weeks since Tina Cohen-Chang had gone through that door in the Choir Room. Every night since, a horrible voice whispered in Sam's ear when he was asleep. It woke him up to a feverish body and to birds that had no business singing at 5:00 in the morning.

He could have sworn that voice was telling him something important but, like in most dreams, the words escaped him as reality and consciousness took over. The blond pulled off his bed sheets and shimmied over to his bedside drawer, opening the third drawer and pulling out a sketch-pad. He reached for something inside the second drawer, and soon pulled out a pen as his left hand flipped the pad open. Sifting through pages of Marvin the Martian blasting Daffy the Duck, Wolverine tearing a thief to shreds, and Captain Kirk shooting at an unseen enemy, Sam found what he was looking for: the page with the door.

"Door number one. Tina." It was almost perfect, all that was really missing from it was the lock; he hadn't gotten a good look at it when the light had nearly blasted him into a concussion.

Leaning back on the headboard, he let his fingers do their magic on an empty part of the paper. He felt connected and disconnected from them at the same time. They moved and created a circle, then the lines and then the beginnings of a face. Dark eyes with slanted eyebrows that made the face rather harsh; a small nose and a mouth with a plump bottom lip. Brown hair styled in large curls completed the look.

"That's pretty much her…" Sam looked at the face smirking up at him from beneath Tina's door and closed the sketch pad when the door to his room opened.

Amanda's head peeked in and the boy blanched when he saw the dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun and she looked like she hadn't seen a bottle of moisturizer in weeks.

"What the hell are you doing up so early?" Her voice reminded him of Gollum from the Lord of the Rings series.

"Bad dream. What's wrong with you?" Sam tried to smile as his sister frowned at him.

"I think those school burritos were poisoned. I– _Oh good God_!" Amanda ran into the room and reached for the nearby trashcan.

She then threw up in it.

"Mands, that's my Avengers trashcan! Come on!" He'd had it since he was around eight, when his father gifted him with his first piece of comic book memorabilia.

The Avengers could go to hell now because there was no way he was using that trashcan anymore.

"You know what Sammy? Fu–"

"I'll tell Mom you dropped the f-bomb!" Sam yells, running from his sister and into his closet, where he appears moments late wearing his father's old 'McKinley Titans' sweatshirt.

"Go to hell."

_**SCENECHANGE?CHIICHICHIHASNOIDEA!SCENECHANGE?**_

It had become a habit without him realizing it.

He'd pass by the hallway so as to cut to Computer class and he could feel the eyes on him as he did. Not just the other students passing by, but those of the ghost him and his sister had befriended. He found himself sneaking by during the final moments of lunch, or shooting out of his classroom like a rocket, ready to spend time with the specter.

At first, the only thing they talked about was how Sam was adjusting to the school.

"If Mrs. Dryer is still teaching American History, you're in luck." said Kurt as he leaned against the door to the room, watching people walking around the hallway perpendicular to the Bloody Hall.

"She's the really small one, likes to dress in pink, right?"

"Bless her soul, Mrs. Ryerson means well but her droning is insufferable at best. Just sleep through her class. Propping up against a book will do. Grab any notes you need from someone else."

Sometimes the conversations would turn from the most mundane aspects of McKinley High to an all out argument about the point of stirrup pants.

"Aren't they like, tights?" Sam asked as he bit into a salami-cheddar-lettuce-tomato sandwich.

He stopped mid-bite as Kurt eyed him with an owlish expression.

"Stirrup pants are an _abomination_. Do you hear me, Lemon-Head? Calling them a fashion faux pas is being, not only generous, but too merciful." The ghost crossed his arms, giving the blond an incredulous look as he paced around the room.

"What do you call those then?" The aforementioned blond pointed a thumb at Kurt's own attire which, at the moment, consisted of white leggings with a long brown sweater. The design on the sweater was of a rather attractive woman wearing a large bow-tie. The bow-tie itself was an actual accessory stitched into place.

"These are leggings. Socially acceptable, not zebra print or a tacky leopard design."

"I wouldn't wear them." Sam gulped down his soda and tried to hold back a spit-take when Kurt began to imitate an owl again. "It's true. You wouldn't see me in those things, dead or otherwise."

"Like a pair of leggings would fit your meaty thighs."

"Ooh, meaty? Didn't know you were watching. I would've worn tighter pants if I knew."

The blush on the ghost's face was worth the embarrassing words flying out of his mouth at the moment.

While not challenging Kurt's beliefs on whether stirrup pants were fashionable or bow-ties were accepted in any occasion other than formal ones, Sam tried to teach Kurt the art of the Na'vi. It didn't seem like the fashionable specter was up to learning any at all. Even if Sam had decided to just teach him certain words.

"It's a fantastic film, even if the effects are a little out-dated." The blond argued, sitting cross legged on the floor next to Kurt, who had donned a white jacket, white pants, black shirt and a white fedora for that particular lunch.

"I'm not spending my time learning how to speak like a blue monkey." Kurt retaliates with a sneer.

"They're _not_ blue monkeys."

"They swing from trees, try to scare others by screeching, and they live in a giant tree. Blue _mon-keys_."

"The Na'vi is a race of honorable and majestic creatures. They're part of a growing civilization on a far-off planet. They make clothing, use weapons, and they cook their food. How more organized to you want them to be?"

"Organized enough so that they assimilate to the English language and I don't have to learn how to say _ay-un-geah_."

"_A-unji-a_." Sam enunciated.

"What does it even mean?"

"Omen or sign."

"Well. Take my face as an_ a-unji-a_ of things to come. You don't stop talking about this and I'll turn to drastic measures."

"That'd be low, Hummel. Low-blow, dude."

"That's right. I'll just rant off on how the old Avengers were better than these new Silver-guys Avengers."

"Platinum Avengers. _Platinum_. You closet comic-geek." Sam smiles brightly at Kurt, while the latter's left eyebrow goes up without fail.

"At least I'm not stuck on the planet Pan-dorkus."

Time would escape him then, as he watched one of Kurt's eyebrows rise in an 'I'm holier than thou' attitude. Something about it attracted him to the ghost; he often forgets Kurt is dead. The brunette next to him doesn't speak about death or the past or anything related to his untimely demise, save for when Amanda shows up to interrogate him about his friends.

Like Tina Cohen-Chang in her pictures, Kurt Hummel seemed alive and well when he let his guard down and talked about anything.

Sam would think about his sister sometimes, when he and Kurt would sit in the desolate Choir Room and talk. He would think about her feelings towards this kind of ordeal. Would she approve of his new habit? What would she think of Sam sneaking away from potential friends to chat up someone they were trying to expel from the living world anyways? Expel seemed to harsh.

Free was the better option.

Even then, the thought of Kurt leaving through his own door was leaving a small, bitter taste in Sam's mouth.

_**SCENECHANGE?CHIICHICHIHASNOIDEA!SCENECHANGE?**_

"Oh, come on, man. Not again?" Jun pushed his Physics book into his locker as he was shot down yet again by a rather disappointed Sam.

The sophomore had been trying to get Sam together for a comic-book powwow at his place a little over a week. The freshman had been all for it, finally finding someone who had the same interest, artistically and otherwise, in the books.

Amanda's sudden predicament wasn't helping them get anywhere. Sam tried not to smile as Jun adopted the expression of a wet, sick and kicked puppy that had its meal taken away. The girl had been locked in her bedroom from Monday to Thursday, throwing up everything from Diet 7up, to soda crackers and soup. It only seemed like liquid medicine would stay down, but some of the pills her doctor prescribed came back up the esophagus highway.

"Food poisoning?"

Jun hissed empathetically as he closed his locker, shouldering his bag and following him on his route to first period.

"Nasty. I think I'll bring my lunch to school from now on."

Sam laughed slightly as he side-stepped a couple of girls. So far talking to Jun and Abel had been a good move on his part. The two were already best friends, and even though the three only knew each other for about four weeks, the sophomores seemed happy to bring the boy into their fold. Abel was a bit of a gamer, owning Left 4 Dead and a W.o.W account, which made him cool in Sam's book. However, Jun's collection of comic books had him curious.

"Hey, I know football tryouts are in like, a week or so, but come over to my house tomorrow. I got the new issue of Platinum Avengers." Jun clapped him on the shoulder and the two knuckle-bumped.

"I'll ask during l–"

The blond was cut off when he collided with someone else.

"Sorry." Sam stopped in his tracks as he took in the sight of who he bumped into.

He felt as though he was thrust back into the Monday morning. The sweat and the heat and air didn't come back to him, but the face did. So did the words. They flooded into him like a rush of ice cold water. The dark eyes studied his face carefully, taking in each twitch of a facial muscle. The hair was a shiny brown and obviously treated in some way to achieve thick curls that rested all around the head. The skin was smooth and nearly flawless, save for a small mole near the nose. The bottom lip stuck out a bit more than the upper one and the nose was small.

The face that had given voice to the warnings, the warnings that forced him into bouts of feverish nightmares, was facing him head on in the middle of a crowded hallway.

Who said High School didn't suck ba–

"Sachi, is there a reason you're trying to mow down my friend here?" Jun glared mockingly at the girl standing in front of them. People around them grumbled as they stopped traffic momentarily but continued on their way.

"Excuse me, big brother. I was occupied with something else."

The girl looked from Sam to Jun and then back. She adjusted the left sleeve of her gray kimono-top, flicking a bit of what Sam was sure was non-existent fluff. Green eyes continued to scan the girl slightly. They rested on the odd clip in the girl's hair: Japanese lettering that contrasted greatly with the rest of her attire, bright purple and glittery. The fourteen year old ignored Jun and Sachi, unaware that the first had been making small-talk with his sibling.

"It means 'Strength'." Sachi piped up as her eyes met Sam's. Jun glanced at his sister, then Sam, and both missed the mischievous smile on his face.

"Sam Evans, meet Sachi Roberts who is, unfortunately, my little sister." Jun smiled as his sister slapped his arm.

"It is my misfortune, dear brother."

"What were you so engaged in that you had to run into us?"

"My studies for being a Miko aren't done yet, you know that." She held out a book, which she had been shielding with her arms when she collided with the two. It was a deep gold, with black symbols. Sam recognized some of them as Kanji.

"Oh, right. Priestess stuff. Whatever. Don't read and walk at the same time, you'll walk into a wall." The older boy patted Sachi's head. The girl merely rolled her eyes and walked off, clutching her book to her chest.

Sam turned around slightly to watch as the Sachi made her way through the throng of students in the hallway. He didn't quite hear Jun calling out to him until the boy tugged at his arm.

"Dude, my sister is not cute." The sophomore would later _swear_ that the blush on Sam's face matched the red of the Titan's uniform.

_**SCENECHANGE?CHIICHICHIHASNOIDEA!SCENECHANGE?**_

While Sam thought about his chance meeting with Sachi Roberts, as well as the meaning behind the door that appeared when he helped Tina Cohen-Chang, Amanda was stuck in her room, sweating like a boar on a spit. So far, eating the meat-less burritos offered by school district wasn't the brightest idea she'd come up with, but it gave her time to get ahead on all her school projects.

Her four-page biology report now only required an additional page for all of her book, newspaper and webs references, while her diorama on Napoleon's fate was still in need of a tiny Napoleon Bonaparte doll. A.P Calculus demanded a worksheet on limits and derivatives for the following day, but she'd already tackled that the week before.

Yes. Being ahead of the crowd gave her the luxury of bending over her toilet and chugging out the remnants of her wheat cracker and orange juice mid-day snack.

"I am going to send a very, very scathing letter Figgins." Amanda wiped her mouth with some toilet paper and hauled herself off the floor of her bathroom.

She trudged through the hall and into her room, slamming the door as loud as she can. Nora and Samuel Evans are nowhere to be found, each at their own job.

Just because Amanda's sick, doesn't mean they have to stay and watch her but just because they have jobs doesn't stop them from calling every _hour on the hour._

As if on cue a red cellphone begins to vibrate at the teen's white, wooden desk. The girl sets it to silent and pulls up her 'Hotmail' account at her laptop. What awaits her doesn't surprise her. It scares her. Deeply.

"Email from Cory Monteith. Subject: Bloody Hall Shooter." Amanda clicks on the file attached to the email, which only has one word written: READ.

"Microsoft word attachment. Ok, let's see what you got me Cory." The blond whispers as she pulls up the file.

She's pulls back, narrowing her eyes at the bright red lettering of the page. It is an article, or rather several articles, about the convicted mass-murderer: Harvey Clarkson.

"Convicted as adult, Harvey Clarkson, age seventeen is being moved to a facility closer to Ottawa, Ohio after incident with Clarkson's cellmate… What the hell?" The girl's green eyes scanned the page.

_MCKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL MURDERER TRANSFERRED_

_By Blaine Anderson_

_Ohio Daily_

_July 10__th__, 2020_

"…_After an unfortunate incident with Clarkson's cellmate, John Riverwood, where the latter became blinded by a 'mysterious' attacker, Clarkson was scheduled to be moved to a facility in upper Ottawa. This move is still pending approval by the city's mayor and Roselyn Asylum's warden, Dr. Jason Steele. Many in surrounding cities, such as Lima, where the terrible massacre of April 2010 occurred, are up-in-arms by the state's decision to transfer Clarkson closer to the site of his crimes. Clarkson is serving thirteen consecutive life sentences and has app..." _

"Well, this is a load of shit." Amanda skimmed over the rest of the article and began to write a reply for Cory when she noticed he attached something else to the email.

A media attachment popped up on her screen and Cory's face was plastered on it. She smiled as he scratched at the curls on his head, his other hand clearly adjusting the camera. The screen trembled and shook before settling.

"Ok. I think this is recording. Um... Hey Mands! I know I saw you today and everything but Dad got me this sweet new camera and I just had to test it out. Hope you got that article I sent you. What else was I going to say?" Cory scratched at his chin lightly, staring at the screen in mild confusion before a smile crossed his face. "Oh yeah! It's about those kids. Right, well I talked to my brother Lyle and he told me these stories about when the ghosts were the most active. He said that there was an actual club dedicated to finding out more about them."

Amanda paused the video, her face scrunching up in concentration. She opened her desk and pulled out her notepad, grabbing a pencil before starting the video up again.

"… So apparently, this Tina chick only appears when you're alone or when you think you're alone or something like that. Jenny told me it was really at random, but I guess she says that because she hasn't really seen one of these ghosts. Oh! I talked to a couple of guys at the Comic Emporium on North Union Street and they used to go to McKinley. They said they used to be on the football team and they walked through the BH a couple of times. Sometimes they would hear a girl screaming at them."

"Possible sightings of Rachel Berry." Amanda noted.

"And sometimes they heard this guy telling them to leave. You know, the whole movie get up: _Leave my domain!_ stuff. But there was one dude, his name was Brett, he said that all the time he saw that one scary dude appear, someone was wearing something from the school. So, I'm thinking he's just crazy right? But then he–"

Wearing something from the school. Amanda frowned as she wrote that particular bit of information. She thought back to when Sam recounted his first meeting with Noah Puckerman. What was he wearing that day? Maybe that set the ghost off?

Amanda brought the Ohio Daily's article and coughed slightly. She needed to lie back down. Working on a fever and food poisoning was not good for her mental health. If she stayed online anymore it would trigger a massive headache.

That's the moment when it hit her like a ton of bricks.

A trigger.

"A trigger! How could I have not seen this before?" The girl jotted something down on her notepad and searched for her phone.

_Sammy! I know ure in study hall. Pleas go to Kurt, now! Urgent! Urgent! Urgnet! Fo tri-_

"_Dear looooooord!"_ Amanda threw up in a nearby trashcan just seconds after hitting send on her phone.

If her theory was right, their job was about to get a bit easier.

If Sam didn't get mauled to death first.

**_T.B.C_**

* * *

_**`author's note: **_I know, I know. Don't get uppity.


	4. Second Contact

_**`author's notes:**_ Amazing. AMAZING. Glee sucked this week (Feel Free to Flame). I can't stand last week's episode. It was just a jumbled up mess, and even though we got some Dorky Sam in there, I am still incredible upset with it. It was a waste of the song Sing! and several other songs. Will and Sue's hospital visit was a sham if I've ever seen it and after grilled Cheesus, this is one of the worst episodes of the season. THERE.

Now, let's get on with our story, right?

_Rewinding!_

Here's what you missed on **'Thirteen Ghosts'**:

_That face wasn't scary or intimidating. Even if it was basically telling him to 'Fuck Off', he felt like it was doing so halfheartedly. _Someone's sneaking into Sam's dream and trying to pry him off the ghostly scent of New Directions. Maybe it's some dangerous mad man? How about Jun's sister then? _The face that had given voice to the warnings, the warnings that forced him into bouts of feverish nightmares, was facing him head on in the middle of a crowded hallway. _Highschool really does suck. Amanda was forced into being a recluse because the school's food isn't exactly up-to-code. _I think those school burritos were poisoned. I– Oh good God! _Ooh. Someone get her a Pepto. Sam's been laughing it up with Kurt but maybe that isn't always a good thing. _The thought of Kurt leaving through his own door was leaving a small, bitter taste in Sam's mouth. _Also, Amanda might have just found out about…

_A trigger! How could I have not seen this before?_

…a way to make her and Sam's job a bit easier. And that's what you missed on '**Thirteen Ghosts'**.

* * *

_**WEBEGINOURCHAPTERNOW!LETUSCOMMENCE**_

_Kill Amanda. _

_Just end her. _

This became Sam's new mantra as he stared at the flickering lights of the empty hallway.

Then again, he was the one that waited a good twenty minutes after the final bell.

He wasn't one to try and draw attention; he only needed it when it benefited him. So it was only natural to hang by his locker an extra ten minutes, and then pretend to be in the bathroom for ten more. Once he had stared at the sharpie markings in the third stall of the first floor bathroom, he had scoured the hallway to find two or three lingering students. He had made his way towards the Bloody Hallway.

Then things got a little creepy.

The lights in the adjacent hallway had started to flicker. The school was very well lit but the change in overhead, fluorescent lamps was still noticeable. Like the beginning of a song, the lamps began to flicker on and off to an unheard rhythm. Once the blond set foot in the hall, one of the cylindrical lamps shut off, followed by the one after it and the one after that. It continued until the last of the lamps was shut off.

It started again.

Once it did the sound of steps echoed across the empty hallway.

_Thud._

_Thud._

_Thud. _

Sam turned around in his spot, staring at the end of the hall where the first floor Chemistry lab was. It was only a dead-end with two wide windows and a trashcan. Turning, he tried to keep his heart from climbing all the way to his throat. Steps were echoing behind him.

It reminded him of clichés in old, forgotten horror movies. The main character would step into an empty hallway at a time where one would think there would be at least one or two other humans hanging around. The silence would be clear, because there obviously wouldn't be any sound filtering in from nearby open windows. If there was, it was usually the creepy branch scratching against the window pane or the low _woosh _of the wind whipping through trees. It wasn't like that one hallway was connected to other hallways where people, people who were alive and well, would be socializing. No. It was obvious that particular area was zoned in the middle the Mason-Dixon Line between reality and the Twilight Zone.

"Jennifer, come on! We'll be late for practice." Sam forced himself to breathe and lean against a nearby locker when two brunettes walked by through an adjacent hallway.

_Stop thinking about stupid 1950 horror-movie clichés! _

_Act like you're going to the choir room._

He took that first step to the choir room and if the shit hadn't hit the fan before, it certainly did now. The steps had only been the first part of this incident. The growls were next.

The steps had been thick, echoing around the walls as though it was being transmitted off a very weak speaker, but the growling was different. It wasn't an echo but clear and concise sound. Someone was growling right next to his left ear.

Sam glanced at his left when he reached the corner of the hallway. No sound; not a whisper reached his ears until he looked to the right and then the guttural noise came back up again.

It was getting to him and he had only stepped into the area a minute ago. Shadows were cast and recast over the whole of the hallway, the lamps' rhythm becoming faster as Sam stepped closer to the haunted corridor. The shadows seemed ominous, claws and teeth splaying out before him before being chased away by the artificial glow of the lights. These weren't an omen or even a warning; they were made to foster a deep fear in him that was beginning to take shape at the pit of his stomach. Each heavy step that came combined with the dark shadows, building the factors up into a song Sam was nearly unable to ignore.

The dull rumbling was separate from the first two elements as it wasn't something he could leave unheard. It was there, eating at his ear and causing the sweat on at his neck to spread.

_Courage. _

_Have courage. _

_It's not like you're in Asgard trying to fight off the Dark Avengers or anything. _

_Call him out. _

_Call him out. _

"I'm not here for any trouble."

All the lights stopped blinking, and the shadows they cast disappeared. The steps stopped echoing and the growling was gone. Along the row of lockers, near the corner where the normal hallway and the Bloody Hallway met, a lonely white poster shook slightly before falling off the wall. It was crinkled at the edges, with faded red letters advertising the McKinley Titan's football game on February 6th, 2011. By the urging of an invisible force the paper fluttered around the floor until stopping near one of Sam's Converse sneakers.

The moment he bent to pick it up, the paper was crushed and balled up.

Before he could move back or stand up he felt a sting on his left cheek. His body was flung against the lower lockers.

"Fuck!" Sam's hands grasped at the back of his head, his whole body bent sideways as he half-knelt, half-laid on the glossy tiled floor. He could feel the blood pumping through his head.

The world was shaking slightly as his vision adjusted. He'd punched another person before and he knew how to take a punch but this one was different.

"Cra- ah! Cold, _cold!_ Shit…" Sam grasped at his cheek, his warm and now noticeably dirty hand covering the affected area. It was cold as ice and he instantly thought of Dr. Freeze trying to smack him around.

Oh, if only! As it was, Sam was now staring up at the panting face of one Noah Puckerman; he looked much more frightening up close than yelling at him from the far end of the choir room.

"Dude, calm down! Did you he– Gack!"

Maybe it was the adrenaline flowing through his brain, or the fear taking hold of his sight, but Sam swore he saw stars the minute the specter was able to grab onto his throat. Didn't Ghostly Apparitions 101 tell you that they were just that, ghostly apparitions? Weren't they supposed to be specters without the ability to touch anything other than the occasional piece of furniture or each other?

"Guh –Ack!" Sam's eyes began to cross as the hand around his throat tighten, pushing his head and the rest of his body against the space between the lockers and the floor. It could have been the lack of proper oxygen flow that caused him to imagine the next mutation of his attacker.

The claws and the bloodied clothing wasn't enough, it seemed. The popping veins, sweating skin and red-nerve lined eyes weren't creepy enough. This guy had to open his mouth and let out a foul stench that could make paint peel away.

Sam's green eyes widened in horror at the sight of row upon row of sharp, pearly white teeth lining the other's mouth. The jaw was unhinging with an ungodly _crack! _The bones underneath the skin were moving back, up and away from their original positions; they squirmed underneath the tight skin, causing the mouth to become impossibly wide.

Noah Puckerman was kneeling down over him, his head shifting side to side as his mouth opened. His lips pulled away, wrinkling against the edges of his mouth and became thin, chapped lines. The inside of his mouth was rotting and stench-filled and a clear paradox to the near-endless rows of clean teeth he saw. They wide, long, all trembling as the specter inched down closer to the struggling teenager.

"Shinpu!"

Noah moved back and the hand that held Sam in place moved to grasp at the ghost's own throat. He moved back and froze, his body rocking back onto his heels momentarily before seizing up.

"Ugh…" Sam's body shifted forward and onto the floor as his lungs began to heave in breaths. His eyesight was still blurry and slightly faded when something pulled at his arms and forced him to crawl away from the lockers.

"Anata wa bakadesu. Jisatsu baka yarō!"

Sam pushed himself against a nearby trashcan and stared up at the face now screaming at him.

"Watashi wa tōzakatte iru koto o katatta." Deep brown eyes stared down at him.

"Whu-What?" muttered Sam as he rubbed at his aching chest.

He turned and looked at Noah, who was still locked in an awkward position: both of his legs were folded underneath him, his feet nearly completely squashed between his legs and the floor. His back was arched forward slightly, his chest still as though he had tried to breathe in. His bloodied, claw-like hands were pulling at his throat and his mouth was still opened: wide and pointed upwards. He was a statue.

"You will leave this place, now!" Sam turned to the new voice and frowned when he saw it was Sachi staring at him.

He had lived with women long enough to realize when one was incredibly pissed the hell off. Sachi was no exception.

"He's… Ah." Sam shifted onto one knee, planting a foot on the floor. "He can't…"

"This is not your concern, leave or I will be forced to remove you." The girl grabbed hold of Sam's sweatshirt and pushed him.

The teen rocked forward and landed on the floor with his hands splayed out before him. He quickly stood, urging his body to stand through the pain ebbing in his muscles. He looked at the girl who was currently turned away from him.

She wore the same thing she had earlier in the day, but something was different about her. It came off her in waves: a feeling of authority and power.

"Sa–"

"Bitch!" Sachi's body bent backwards just in time to avoid one of Noah's clawed hands trying to scratch her face off.

The ghost had moved from his spot the very moment the duo had begun to argue. Noah's head lunged forward to bite at the youth's head, only to catch air when she tumble-rolled out of the way.

"Leave! Leave now! Ha!" Sachi dodged another attack and stepped back, her hands digging into her pocket as she kept her eyes on Noah.

The ghost's eyes switched from Sachi to Sam, both moving back with each step the apparition took. Muscles and legs shook slightly underneath the boy's shirt as he crouched back and launched himself at Sam with guttural roar.

"Fu–"

"Shinpu!" Sachi's hands moved quickly and Noah's roar ceased when a thin wooden plaque met his forehead. He froze in the air, his body stiffening up as it had done before. All but his eyes became still, and he focused his gaze on Sam who chose to do what he was finding himself doing too often lately.

He ran.

He ran, but not before grabbing hold of Sachi Roberts's arm and pulling her away with him.

**ADJUSTYOURSEATBELTS/SCENECHANGE!**

"What the fuck was that about? What did you do to him?" He glared.

He leaned against the black railings of the large steps and didn't look away, even for a moment. He felt that if he did, Sachi would pull a 'Sleepy Hollow' and return from whatever Tree of the Dead had spit her out into the world. The girl didn't fidget or squirm under his gaze, only return it with silence and a blank expression worthy of the irritation Sam was feeling now.

"As much as I'd like to thank you for saving my butt back there, you still haven't answered a single question."

Sachi stood from her place at the bench, looking away from Sam and scanning the area before stepping closer to him until they were inches apart. She didn't look at him, but seemed to be choosing her words carefully. Her mouth only opened for a moment before she shut it tightly and directed her gaze to Sam's shoes. From afar it seemed like a bit of an intimate thing. Sam with his legs apart, leaning against the railing with his hands at either side. Sachi, hands holding a portfolio against her chest and head slightly bowed. Their expressions were the only thing that gave away what was really happening.

"I warned you. You ignored me. I will tell you once more: Stay away."

With that, Sam found himself staring as the small girl walked away, down the sidewalk and towards the parking lot. He felt the urge to yell something back, something along the lines of 'Make me'. As defiant as he wished he was, the gentlemanly ways Nora Evans managed to instill in him only left him whispering his annoyance.

This sucked. Epically. At least those Al-Qaeda dudes were always briefed on what mission they were going and if suicide had been a requirement. Amanda had put him up to this without telling him that an adrenaline-driven, robust and narrow minded ghost was going to try and chew him up. Sure, he had seen movies where lost or locked souls would freak people out by turning into their deepest fears. They would bend and change themselves to suit whatever freaked the protagonist the most. Conjuring up hallucinations to either scare a person to the point of insanity or death. However, not a single one of those movies told him that a ghost could hold him down and snap at him like a Great White Shark.

"God…" Sam rubbed at his eyes and leaned back a bit more against the railing, trying to get the memory of the teeth out of his mind.

The way the bones moved would have been insanely cool, like the Hollows from that one Manga series Amanda was always obsessing over. The blond slid down to the ground when a single thought crossed his mind, one that was making his jaw clench.

What if Kurt was like that? Sure, he was nice enough when he wasn't trying to tell Sam that his red and white polo shirt wasn't very flattering to his features or that he should stop re-watching old SyFy channel movies and focus on something more interesting. Still, if Noah Puckerman could pull off having a mouth the size of a 12 inch skillet, Kurt could probably do the same. Who was to say he wasn't stringing Sam along? Maybe he wasn't like the Warrior, but sneaky and dangerous in his very own way. He remembered that he was dealing with people who _used_ to be alive. Emphasis on the fact that they had a body, now they don't but they're still walking around like nothing has happened. He was talking, running after and away from souls. As much as he wished he were dealing with people, whose intentions were usually a bit clearer, he wasn't. Sam Evans had walked into and latched himself onto the train those thirteen, well now twelve, ghosts were still on, which he guessed was overflowing with emotional baggage.

His mind turned to Tina's face when she was screaming about her friends. Her features had been scrunched up in such pain and sadness that it felt uncomfortable even thinking about it, but it had changed. She changed when she realized there were others who could see her, who could see that she wasn't alone. If Tina had been pleased by the fact that someone was talking to her, after years of being alone, who's to say what was keeping the others locked.

Sam opened his backpack and pulled out a pencil, flipping his sketchpad open and flipping to the page with Tina's door still drawn on it. The lock was wrapped tightly over the door and Sam tried not to smack himself when he realized it was sitting right in front of it and he had basically pondered over it mere moments before. The reason they couldn't move on was different for each.

Tina had been alone. Sam made her see differently.

A door appeared.

Tina thought she wouldn't see her friends again. Kurt's words traveling through Sam's voice told her otherwise.

A chain and a lock appeared.

He told her he wasn't invisible. The door opened and she left.

A train roaring down the tracks, but the tracks were set one way: a complete circle. No matter how fast it moved the train wouldn't get off that track unless someone managed to pull that switch to get the rails to move; to make them settle on that one stretch of track that would lead them out of the loop. The only way to do that, Sam thought –as he drew lines up and down the corner of an empty page– was to rid the train of all that extra baggage. Make it easier to focus on getting it off that infinite loop and not be worried about it tipping over at every curve. It was going to be hard. Tina had appeared out of sheer luck. Kurt didn't talk about anything related to his life if he could help it. He hadn't seen that Quinn girl since the day Reuben and Carson locked him in the choir room. All Noah was fixated on was dismembering Sam. \

Dismembering Sam and Sachi.

"I should tell Amanda that." The boy scribbled at the edge of the paper, where he also drew a miniature door with a lock.

His stomach lurched at the idea of what kind of lock was keeping Noah in the school. If it was something that made him this violent against the living then it was something Sam and Amanda would have a hard time finding out. Forget helping him get through it without being sent to a hospital.

_Honey, with you_

_Is the only way to go_

_And I could take two_

_But I really couldn't ever know_

_Honey, with you_

_And a little battered r–_

"Hello?" Sam grabbed his blue backpack off the edge of the railing and sat down on the spot Sachi left moments earlier.

"_Did you go, like I asked?"_

"I nearly got my freaking face bitten off!" He yelled into the phone. He ran hand through his hair. Some scuffling was heard on the other end of the line.

"_I knew it! Are you hurt?"_

"No. No, Amanda I'm just emotionally traumatized."

"_Oh, that's nothing a few Outer Limits episodes won't cure." _

"Amanda, take this seriously. You sent me to hallway to die. Do you realize that?"

"_I was just testing a hypothesis." _

"Testing a– Wow that is original. Real. _Freaking._ Original." Sam kicked a nearby trashcan for good measure and regretted it when he felt a stab of pain in his left toe.

_Beep! Beep!_

"_Oh come on Sam. At least I know why the Warrior showed up when he did." _

"Yeah. Explain that to my burning lungs and scarred throat." With that he hung up the phone and waited by the edge of the sidewalk as a black 2004 Honda Elysion pulled up.

Nora Evans' smiling face appeared when the passenger-side window was pulled down.

"Hi Honey."

Sam tossed his backpack into the backseat and hopped into the passenger's side, giving his mother a kiss on the cheek. He turned the radio on.

_All I want is to be left alone  
In my average home  
But why do I always feel  
Like I'm in the twilight zone_

_And I always feel like  
Somebody's watch–_

He switched the station and leaned back in his seat when the car pulled away from the school's parking lot and onto the street.

"How was your day?"

_**WE'REONANINFINITELOOP/BLOODISTHICKERTHANKNOWLEDGE**_

"Sam! Come on. Stop being such a baby."

The blond rolled over on his bed, resting on his stomach, and flipped a page of his comic book, revealing Thor in the midst of smashing an opponent into the base of a volcano. The details of the crushed earth, flying boulders and Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, were enough to keep him distracted from Amanda's constant knocking at his door. He flipped to another page to reveal a hidden sorcerer praying from a secret cavern underneath the volcano. If Thor didn't realize it and shifted…

"… He'll be in deep shit." Sam munched on a couple of Ultra-Spicy Cool Ranch Doritos, trying not to tip the bowl while scanning the page up and down several times.

"Samuel Evans!"

It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to Amanda but she did send him in without warning. Not only was it extremely uncool, she probably violated several unwritten friendship and sibling rules; let alone superhero guidelines and brotherhood honors, which were really important as well. Simply put: she messed up and she wasn't the only one who knew how to give the cold shoulder. His information on the day's events did not lay forgotten, but rested among the scribbles in his notepad, leaning against the foot of his bed. He turned on his bed to face the door when the knocking stopped. He bit his lip and reached for his sketchpad, which rested at the foot of his bed. Ripping the page with pictures of Puck's horrible attack and Sachi's interruption, he folded the paper twice, and then slipped it under his door. A dark shadow came and covered the crevice between the door and the floor.

After a few minutes and a muffled 'shit' footsteps were heard and receded after a moment or so.

Sam sighed in relief and fell back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling while his left hand groped for his comic book.

He couldn't wrap his head around it. Sachi had been so angry at him but they had only met a few hours ago. She seemed calm, not quiet, but not like one of those people who showed they knew more than you did.

Maybe Sam was having a day-long déjà vu?

"No, that would mean I'd met her before. Maybe I've been eating too many Cool Ranch Doritos." The blond's right hand patted his stomach as his musings continued.

What if the world was subtly telling him to back the hell off from something that was barely starting? That girl was going to be a pain in the ass, for sure. Sam turned back to his comic, flipping to a new page where Thor had been cornered by several grotesque and deformed henchmen. He looked thoughtful before laying down his weapon in defeat. Green eyes scanned the next page where the creatures moved back, only to be slammed up and away to high-heaven by Sif.

"Sam! Seriously, stop ignoring me. I've apologized for about one-thousand times."

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to find out if Sif saved Thor at that moment, Sam left the comic on his bed and willed himself to open the door. Amanda thrust a yellow notepad into his arms and closed the door behind her. She sat down at the edge of the bed. Sam frowned at her and then read her notes.

He gave up after every third word with a 'b' in it kept getting switched with a 'd'.

_Damn dyslexia. _

"I'm tired; just tell me what's up." Sam fell onto his bed and kept his face on the comforter, only moving slightly to the left so he could stare at his sister's back. Amanda moved and crossed her legs, placing the notepad on the bed and crossing her arms. She kept her eyes on the darkening bruise on her brother's left cheek.

Their mother had decided to buy the story that she accidentally smacked him with a book when he sneaked up on her at school. Hopefully the pain wasn't too much.

"I really am sorry."

"You sent me to my near-death. This is worse than when Spider-Girl betrayed her father and tossed him into a vat of toxic chemicals and ran away with Puma's son." Sam muttered, more to himself than to his sister.

"If you had finished that issue of Spider Girl #188 you'd remember she didn't toss Spider-Man in there, they faked it. Also, Puma's son is an attractive whore, who could blame her?"

"You're not making this better." Sam moved his head and faced his bed's headboard.

Amanda heaved a sigh and plopped down next to her brother, spooning him slightly and sliding an arm around his waist. She frowned when she noticed the dark bruises his green tank-top didn't hide. There was the imprint of a A ghost was supposed to be a ghost, non-corporeal and unable to even touch them. This one could have ripped her brother's head clean off. Amanda snuggled closer to Sam, who didn't struggle or make any point to object, but kept staring at the headboard.

"We've only helped one ghost, we barely know about the others and now…"

"That Sachi chick is getting in the way, I know. Let's just forget and talk about it tomorrow, huh?" Amanda ran her hands through Sam's hair smiling at how his hair seemed to be a bit darker than all the others in the Evans family.

"Man–"

"Go to sleep Sam."

He didn't, not for a long time but when his breath evened out and he snored slightly, Amanda shut off the lights in the room and snuggled back against her little brother. He had started curling into himself like he did when he was younger. Amanda remembered that time well, when a younger Sam was afraid of the dark and of the deep, musky smell of the attic. When one night-light wasn't enough and their parents' assurance that the closet had no monsters didn't help him sleep. He hadn't gone to Magdalene for help, but to her. She had put a pasta-strainer on her head, picked up a plastic shield from an old Link costume and braved the closet while little Sam watched from under the covers. It had been an annoying task back then, having to kick the imaginary bogeyman's butt every other day.

Now it was endearing. Sam had endured something so hard, mixed with all the insecurities he had been carrying since the first day of high-school, which was going to pour over him eventually. Not at the moment, he had only been frustrated today but it was going to accumulate. She wasn't blind to his friendship with Kurt and his insistence on talking to the ghost every day.

She wasn't blind to the way he would stare just a little bit longer than with other people.

Her thoughts of the younger Sam faded away and she tried not to cry as the possible outcomes of Puck's attacked washed through her. The sudden sadness that rang in her heart was causing her to tighten her grip on her brother. The anger she felt for herself was creating a steady 'bang' in her mind. A headache was sure to follow. It had been so stupid of her to ask him. That damned Warrior could have easily ripped him to death.

The thought of her fourteen year old kid brother lying in a pool of his own blood, scarred and mangled, nearly forced the night's dinner back up her throat.

"You're such an idiot. I'm making you take on this world and it's kicking you at the starting line Sammy." Amanda muttered as she closed her eyes.

She kept her grip on him tight, trying to assure herself that he would still be there tomorrow.

* * *

**_`author's note:_** So I said 3 weeks and it's really been around 4, or maybe 4 and a half. Still, thank you so much to all of you who have been reading this, reviewing it and generally helping me. This is not only for you guys, but for me, a growing experience. Also, there is a reason for Puck being able to beat the shit out of Sam and for the Evans siblings to be able to touch them. ITS COMING. Just wait a little longer. I'm not following TRADITIONAL ghost rules here for the moment, because I'm going super-super-supernatural on this story. It reminds me of something along the lines of 'when you eliminate the theories, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the answer'.

_Translations: All the translations are from an online translator that I'm not sure is accurate. Don't flame me for it, but correct me if I'm wrong._

Anata wa bakadesu. Jisatsu baka yarō! - You are an idiot. A suicidal idiot!

Watashi wa tōzakatte iru koto o katatta - I told you to stay away.


	5. Chapter 5  Sneak Peek

**`author's note:** Am I extremely late for this? Yes. HELL YES. But to keep you guys going I'm providing this sneak preview while I work on the next installment of 13 Ghosts and the next Outbreak chapter.

I hope this ties you guys over.

* * *

She was late. Very late.

Rachel Barbara Berry was always the first to be at Glee club if she didn't have anything from the Speech Club, Mock United Nations Club, Renaissance Club, Muslim Students Club, 4H Club, or the Black Students Union to attend to. She checked her pink and white checkered wrist watch, a gift from Finn as a five month anniversary present; granted she had to remind him that it was their five-month anniversary but it's the thought that counts. The watch flashed the time at her: 11:22 am (1). She had her lunch packed neatly away in her book-bag, kept in a corner of the Choir Room so as to maximize efficiency. Not much was done at meetings held during lunch but Rachel had lived by the notion that you could never be too unprepared.

She stopped at the door to the choir room and checked her watch again. If she had enough time she could probably sneak in a small make-out session with Finn later. The watch read 11:25 am.

"Oh Dear Gaga, tell me you are not wearing that and this salmon I'm eating is laced with something hallucinogenic." Kurt's eyes widened at the sight of Rachel's pink and green striped cardigan, her brown skirt and beige oxfords combined with white knee-high socks. He cut a piece of his honey-soy broiled salmon, careful not to tip the plastic Ziplock container sitting on his crossed legs.

Rachel scoffed angrily while Kurt rolled his eyes.

"Kurt, I hope that isn't envy laced in your vo–" She heard a shrill whistle. The kind one would use to call a dog.

_Bang!  
_

"Aa…"

She had turned her head for one second. She hadn't fully registered what happened until she hit the ground. Her stomach felt like it was on fire and there was an ache in her back that was rising as fast as a jet. Her skin became clammy and sweaty as her hands groped for something invisible on the ground: purchase maybe, perhaps something to help her get away?

_Tap._

"Rachel!" Kurt's shrill scream was almost covered by Finn's wail. He rushed for her but did not touch her when he saw the blood spreading across the clean, white tiles of the floor. He shuddered and knelt in front of her, hands held above her. He was too afraid to touch.

_Tap._

Even as she heard Finn coming towards her, she couldn't keep her eyes off the hallway. Dark boots were making their way across the tile-covered floor. Someone was heading towards her and her body was in such a shock that her mind began to unravel then and there. This couldn't be happening to her because it was just a tragedy you heard about on CNN or on some late night E! Documentary special. This wasn't happening to her.

_Tap._

Even when the second shot pierced her stomach her mind refused to buckle, so she focused on a single point in the hallway. She focused on a huddled mass against the wall. Her mind looked on and studied the burly reddish hair, the thick framed glasses and the sweaty complexion. As she bled on the floor, spread in front the doorway to the choir room, Rachel Barbara Berry made a last attempt at saving her life. She screamed with those iron lungs she was born with.

She screamed for all she was worth.

"_Help me!"_

She continued to scream until her lungs burned and her vision clouded. When her voice failed her she tried to move. Her left arm grasped at the floor, seeking out that huddled mass at the end of the hall. She reached out and tried to save herself but the mass moved and it was soon gone.

Her watch read 11:30 am.

* * *

`author's note: Don't kill me. Seriously. I like living.


End file.
